Can you invite people to the bachelorette party and not to the wedding?

Some of the bridesmaids and I are trying to help plan a bachelorette party for my best friend. She wants us to have a weekend getaway type party that will cost $300+ per girl if 15 girls attend (more if less attend). She is pretty adamant that we go away for the weekend. She wants us to invite girls that she isn’t going to invite to her wedding. Is this okay? In some circumstances it seems okay, but it feels kind of rude when that much money is involved.

@jenall: I’m not sure what etiquette says, but I will be doing this for mine. I’m in a sorority and I can’t invite 100 girls to my wedding, so I invited about 15, and the rest are welcome to celebrate with me at my bachelorette party!

I personally think that’s not really appropriate. Iit would be one thing if it was just going out to a bar for some drinks or something, but expecting them to pay that much and then not inviting them to the actual wedding doesn’t sit right with me.

No! It’s actually quite rude to invite someone to any wedding related activities and not to the wedding. It’s like inviting your friends over to see your new house but then shooing them out when your actual guests start to arrive for your house warming party that you’re throwing….

She’s basically saying to these girls that she only wants to see them for their money, because the wedding is so special and the reception is to be a sort of “thank you” to your guests. So she’s getting the money and blatantly not inviting them to the “thank you”

I’m gonna go with “No” on that one. Hi, you are good enough for me to ask you to spend hundreds of dollars on my bachelorette, but not good enough for me to invite you to my wedding and pay for anything for you. It’s basically a giant middle finger.

I only gave myMOH people who were invited to my wedding on the invitation list because I felt very rude being like “hey come out of town and spend money and buy me drinks but you can’t come to my wedding”. Well a mutual friend (who wasn’t invited to the wedding because of guest list/space restriction ) found out about my party and really wanted to go and asked my MOH to please ask me if she could attend. She knows she’s not invited to the wedding and I’d love to have her company to the bachelorette so I said sure! I think as long as these people are aware they aren’t invited to the wedding and have expressed an interest to the bride in wanting to go to the bacherelette it’s ok!

@Italiandoll: This seems totally fine, but OP you’re right that asking people to spend money for a bachelorette when they aren’t invited to the wedding isn’t cool.

I went to a bachelorette for a wedding I wasn’t invited to (although it was local–I think it isn’t as big of a deal to have a night on the town even if you aren’t invited to the wedding) but the bride didn’t invite me, a friend did. I knew the bride didn’t mind (and I actually ended up at the wedding too, as someone’s guest) and it was fun, but I would have thought it pretty rude had I been formally invited.

@jenall: I think it depends on the girl(s) you plan to invite. I know people who’d be incredibly hurt if only invited to the bachelorette and not to the wedding and others who’d be more understanding about guest limitations at the wedding and therefore happy to join. I think you should consider what the most likely reaction of the girl(s) in question is…

@jenall: I have seen some people say (but I can’t recall their assertion being backed up with any citations) that since a bachelorette is not a gift-giving event and not technically hosted by the people hosting the wedding (although, as with a shower, the bride is often consulted for a guest list) one has a little flexibility to invite people who are not invited to the wedding. However, this line of thinking tends to assume a relatively modest event. If you are going to charge people $300 to attend this event, then I agree with all the other posters who have said that it would be inappropriate to invite anyone who wasn’t going to be invited to the wedding.

I was going to say NO! but then I realized…that is EXACTLY what I’m doing.

I live in NYC but am having the wedding in our hometown back in the midwest. A lot of my NYC friends want to throw me a bachelorette/pre wedding dinner party before I leave next month to get married. Only 1 of them were invited to the wedding.

And not because I only wanted 1 of them to attend but because I know my friends won’t be traveling to the mid-west in the dead-of-winter to attend a wedding. They just wouldn’t and I talked to most of them about this and it’s 100% drama free. I actually think most of my friends are glad they didn’t get an “official invite” because I saved them the awkwardness of thinking they were going to offend me by not coming.

That said – they are all up for coming to my party that they are throwing for me. So I really think it just depends on the types of people you are inviting/friends with.